


Final Cut

by inexorablydrawn



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, Fix-It, Is this a giant subtweet? who knows, Plot What Plot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-03
Updated: 2020-01-03
Packaged: 2021-02-27 06:29:13
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,932
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22102603
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inexorablydrawn/pseuds/inexorablydrawn
Summary: Rey is the Film editor on Ben Solo's latest film series, and she's not pleased with how it ended.Things escalate quickly when she realizes the film series had been a multi-million dollar love letter.A Love letter to her.--One Shot
Relationships: Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 11
Kudos: 181





	Final Cut

“You can’t kill Kylo!” Rey scrubbed through her editing timeline again and again just to make sure she’d seen his newest cut right. “That defeats the entire point of the narrative.”

Ben had been lounged on the couch in the back of the editing suite. Flipping through the pages of the script crossing out and scribbling things like a mad man. “It had to happen. There isn’t really a choice.”

“Why!?” Rey burst, swiveling her chair to face him. The room was dark. They were both working way later than they should have been. But a deadline was a deadline and _now_ is when Ben Solo decided to choke on his storytelling? “It’s such an easy way out. There’s no closure. It’s just tragic.”

“It’s the end. It marks the end,” he grumbled, unaffected, seeming not to care, or perhaps, caring too much. “We aren’t making more movies after this. He has to die. The audience wants to see it.”

Rey groaned and turned back towards her computer, scrubbing through the footage again. “This is bad.”

“What?” he finally looked up.

“Look, I’m your editor, it’s my job to pull your head out of your ass. This is a bad movie. This isn’t a story people will want to watch over and over again years from now. It’s a story to please an angry subreddit someone accidentally e-mailed you. This story will be forgotten with history.”

Ben was silent. Even in the darkness, Rey could see the red in his cheeks. From anger or embarrassment, she didn’t know.Maybe they should both just call it a night and discuss it in the morning.

“Ben—“ she tried again, using a more soothing tone. She of all people knew how much this character, in particular, meant to him. Even if he denied it at every turn, she knew he’d written Kylo as a reflection of himself. She knew if Ben wanted to kill Kylo off so badly, what that must mean of what he thought of himself. “You should go home, and get some rest.”

“What about you?” he said, his voice was soft now. Soft in a way that sent a chill through her body.

“I’m going to work on an alternate edit to show you in the morning, and you can tell me if you like it.” Rey may regret signing herself up for another sleepless night, but this was something she would not budge on.

“—I’ll stay,” he resided, swinging his legs up on the couch.He tried to stretch out but his height prevented him from doing it fully. Then, as if a memory had resurfaced, he bolted straight up. The red in his cheeks deepening but this time Rey’s had too.

It had been two years since the _incident_. The incident on the same couch working on the same film series. It had been another late night and Rey had brought drinks.And though she wasn’t drunk out of her mind, she was certainly buzzed enough to think giving her technical boss a blow job was a good idea. Thankfully, at the time, he agreed and returned the favor quite enthusiastically.

She was pretty sure there were still stains on the other side of the flipped cushion.

They hadn’t talked about it passed that night. 

He was so handsome, though. Rey thought he could have been an actor himself if he had any interest in the idea of celebrity. Once she had brought up her attraction with a couple of friends on the lot, and she was met with a round of ‘if only he wasn’t the world’s biggest asshole.’

She didn’t think that of him. But she didn’t have to be around him on set that often. He wasn’t that bad with her, not really. They’d had arguments and disagreements about certain choices, but maybe Rey just never took him that seriously.She couldn’t. Not when she loved how he looked when she convinced him he was wrong and she was right.

With a cough, Rey tucked herself neatly back under her desk and started to drag clips over the existing cut. “Look, if we just cut the scene here, the audience will assume he’s alright. He’s made the sacrifice. The audience will have to accept that.”

The scene would end on the shot of a smile. She had to resist turning back to gage Ben’s reaction.

“He… he doesn’t deserve it,” he said after a moment of contemplation.

“God, why do men have such a fetish for dying for the cause? Like the only worthwhile thing you can do is die? He was willing to risk it, isn’t that enough?” She pushed back from the desk again, rolling towards him quickly, knocking into the back of the couch. He flinched, weary of the proximity and froze. His eyes drifting down to her lips.

It was becoming painfully clear they needed to talk about several things.

“Ben, we’ve done this late-night session dozens of times since the _incident_. What on earth is getting in your head now?” Rey blurted. She couldn’t work with a director who was now suddenly terrified to make eye-contact with her.

“The _incident?_ Is that what we’re calling it?”

“Would you rather me call it the night I sucked you off? Is that easier for you?”

Ben’s eyes widened and he looked around the small room like he had to confirm no one else was there. “Shh! Someone could hear you!”

“No one is here Ben. The editing suites are soundproof and locked.” She lowered her voice regardless. “You’re being weird tonight, something about this final Kylo scene is making you weird. For some reason, you don’t think he deserves a happy ending wi—“

 _Oh._   
  
She was an idiot. She’d been staring at this footage for months. She’d been over it again and again with a fine-toothed comb and never saw what Ben had done.Or rather, undone, with each passing reshoot and edit.He’d undone the love story. He’d given his film a tragic, meaningless, end.

The entire film was a love letter at one point. The actress who played Kira, petite, freckled, and brunette. The character who always fought for what she believed in. Who always put Kylo in his place. No matter how many times he messed up she saved him. She convinced him to do the right thing.

It wasn’t just any love letter.

“Can we not talk about this? If we’re not going to work tonight—“ his eyes darted from her mouth to her eyes and he swallowed, “we can go home—separate _homes_ — and talk in the morning.”

“Ben…?” her voice felt tight. The dialog he’d written that she’d heard so many times, and was quite honestly sick of, replayed in her head.Now sounding new. The dialog in the final scene he’d insisted on removing because, ’she wouldn’t believe him,’ now haunting her.

It had been a while since he’d made that request about the dialog. To make sure to cut so you couldn’t see the mouths moving, and just have the reactions. Rey tried to remember the words, and she urgently jumped back to her desk, looking for the original footage. Ben leaped up after her, reaching over to stop her.

“Rey!” he said, his massive body weight hard against her back as he continued to hold her still, “it’s my decision.”

But they were both frozen. Pressed together. Ben’s arms draped over hers in a desperate scramble for control. Rey felt the warm slide of his breath against her neck. It made her skin prickle. Her stomach tightened. Neither of them moved as their breath began to sync.

“Don’t I have a say in that?” Rey said, no longer sure if she was talking about her job or something else. They still didn’t move. Rey could have easily shifted out from under him and she didn’t. Ben’s hands shook as they retracted slightly up her arms but stopping at her waist. His hands clenched and it nearly made her yelp as he dug his nose into the side of your neck.

“You’re so--small,” he said like he was just discovering it. His grasp only tightened. He was forgetting himself. “I feel like I could break you.”

Her breath hitched, and she knew she was pushing herself back into him. Desperate to feel the area where their hips touched. She swallowed. “What else could you do?”

“ _A lot.”_ He groaned and his lips moved against her neck. They were so close. They could have this if only they let themselves. A tiny sigh escaped her mouth and he backed away, running his fingers through his hair before turning to face the wall. “Shit, Rey, we can’t do this again.”

Rey took to opportunity to face him. “Why not?”

“Let’s just call it a night,” he muttered, lifting his bag and throwing his script in it. “We’re both tired.”

“Look, if there is someone else you can tell me, you’ve just been acting so—“

“Of course there is no one else. It’s always been you. You know that” he barked before pinching his brow and looking away.

“I… I didn’t.”

“You don’t have to lie to me to spare my feelings, I get it.” He reached for the door.

“I’m not!” She didn’t know what to say. Her whole body felt like it was burning.

“I can’t keep doing this casual thing. If we do I’m never going to get over it. I just can’t.”

“Why do you need to get over it?”

The air grew thick. Ben still refused to look in her direction. He just stared down at the doorknob hesitating to turn it.

“I—“ he started with no particular words in mind, “you really didn’t know?”

She stepped towards him. Looking at the door assuring it was still locked. She ran her fingers over his hand, removing it from the handle, and kissed him.

Just full-on grabbed him by the face and kissed him. It wasn’t particularly well done or clean, but hopefully, it got the point across. She never really had a way with words. She would have been a writer if she had. But she knew how stories should go, and this is how theirs would end.

Within seconds she felt the vibrations of a stifled moan against her lips, and his grasp crashed her hips against his. 

And lacking any patience, she started at his belt.

It was so late. Maybe she was delusions. But she knew she wanted something more. She needed something more.

Ben parted from her lips as she finally got the belt undone, not even taking it out of the belt loops before she started at his pants. He just stared at the energy of her frenzied fingers before sliding his own hands under the hen of her blouse. The warmth against her skin only adding to what felt like an insatiable hunger.

“I’m, going to regret saying this,” he started, voice wavering, “are you sure you don’t want to take things more slowly.”

Rey was already undoing his zipper, her knuckled grazed the hardened length of him through his boxers and he shuddered. “Do _you_ want to take things slow?”

“Not really,” he admitted with closed eyes, “but also, I don’t want this to be another one-time thing we don’t talk about for years. I don’t want this to be another glimmer of hope that one day—“

“Ben. I want the same things you do.” She pulled herself close, delicately playing with his shirt buttons before one popped open with little effort. These shirts never seemed to fit him right. The strained buttons always holding on for dear life whenever he stretched back. She loved it. “At least, I hope I do.”

“Tomorrow, promise me, we don’t forget about this. We don’t pretend we don’t care. We will go on a real date and maybe actually make it back to someone’s house and not an editing suite.”

“I kinda like defiling the editing suite…”

“… Me too,” he admitted with a sigh.

And they tumbled back onto the couch, letting everything spill to the floor without a second thought. Including Rey’s shirt which she couldn’t even remember taking over her head. She only felt bare skin against bare skin. His chest revealed through an unbuttoned shirt. He hadn’t even gotten this naked the last time.

Ben, from above her, sat back and shrugged off his top, and Rey gave herself a moment to gawk at his incredible form. Smooth and solid muscle. A statue of a Greek god. A statue whose weight from above her she cherished. A weight that flooded her with comfort and passion and made her blood sing.

She’d wished she’d worn a cuter bra, but as his mouth moved lower and his fingers moved the fabric to the side, she found she couldn’t have cared less about it. Especially when he sucked onto her breast and brushed his tongue against a hardened nipple. The gasp that escaped her couldn’t have been restrained. She knew how good he was with his mouth from experience and she was glad those abilities translated to other body parts as well.

With his free hand, he began to massage her other breast while Rey scrawled between them to try to take off her jeans. She didn’t want to wait any longer. She wanted every part of him on her, in her, around her.

They could take their time later. They’d agreed to try this for real. Taking their time for lovemaking could be for tomorrow or the next day or the rest of their lives for all Rey knew.

She twisted her hand to grasp at him through his boxers. Still hard and pulsing against her palm.She’d probably been most familiar with this body part from their prior experience, but that didn’t make her any less eager to have it again.

The hum in reaction to her touch against her breast had her arching against him. Attempting to hold in her own groans made something feral come from the throat. With one last struggle out of their remaining clothing, he thrust himself into her without fanfare. The delicate yet powerful ache in her core dissipated and his lips crashed against hers again.Now more tongue than anything else.

Everything about it was incredibly messy. Every noise was incredibly lewd. The room spun and for a moment Rey felt as if this were all a dream. And she’d wake up empty, alone, and aching in her bed.

Then he started to move in earnest, snapping her out of the idea, each thrust as powerful and dominating as the last. The couch would probably be several inched moved by the time they were done as she clutched into his thick dark hair, pulling too strongly, but the growl that came from him told her he didn’t mind.

She had a feeling that no amount of soundproofing could really prevent the noises they were making from escaping out into the hall.

“I’ve wanted nothing but this—“ he breathed, trying to keep pace, placing his forehead between her neck and her shoulder, “for two years.”

Her walls began to clench around him and he grunted. She was so lost in him that she could barely find the words to say, “Me too.”

He hunched the kiss her breast again, pulling her back off the couch to meet him. And when his lips met her too-sensitive skin she was sent over the edge. Her body jolted and pulsed and behind her eyes were a thousand starts bursting with pleasure and need. He didn’t slow as he worked her through every last wave, and each burst was as powerful as the last.

She wrapped her legs around his waist, desperate to keep him close and inside her.

“Fuck,” he said, his body beginning to shake, “I need to get a condom.”

“Birth control.” She assured with what little voice she had. And she hoped he understood that meant, ‘if you pull out right now, I’ll end you.’

“Thank god.”

And within the minute he followed her over.

It wasn’t until they were breathless, panting next to each other, wrapped in the other's limbs when Rey remembered that her office had security cameras installed since the last film. And she’d have to ask Rose for a giant very embarrassing favor once the morning came.

—

The night of the premiere, after all was said and done, Ben was brushing his teeth while Rey was busy burrowing herself in the covers.Exhausted but nothing but happy to be out of heels. He’d been usually quiet throughout the night, only giving short interviews before taking her by the arm into the theater quite shamelessly.Not that their relationship was much of a scandal, but it was really the first time most of the cast and crew saw it publicly.

“Do you think it went over okay?” he asked as he walked to the bed, bare-chested with a pair of plaid pants hung low on his hips. Rey almost didn’t hear the question.

“I do,” she said after a paise, wrapping around him once he got settled, “I still wish you brought the dialog in the last scene back.” She poked him teasingly and he looked at her with a soft smile.

“I wrote that for you. No one else. You were the only one who I wanted to hear it.”

She grinned.

And she knew, that after so many sleepless nights getting ready for this one night, tonight would be just another one for the list.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for tuning in!   
> I'm not bitter at all X_X  
> Hah!


End file.
